The financiers of America are eating their childrenand under their wings the mad swarm of locustsare chewing on the sacred texts of the Republic.The colossal whirlwind of their furyairlifts the troops towards those distant colonieswhere the eyes are blindedand the rings of mercyauctioned at the local marketplace of dust.

The dictators sleep in the muzzle of a dogthat yelps at the moon,and take their aim at the nightthrough the sightglass of treachery and peroxide.The wires of the international services quiverwith the whispered prayers of nuns raped and shot
at gunpoint.The government spokesmen stumble over the broken
shoelaceof land reform,and the eighty thousand disappeared feet cry outfor their legs that are on the journeynorth along the Pan-American highway.

The social mask wearies of its lies,puts the shotgun barrel between the eyes,and pulls the trigger.

The unemployed workers set up their warehouses
far undergroundstockpiled with high explosives.But the offshore drilling has yet to tap the resourcesof the heart, which is also heavy.

And if the earth moans againunder the weight of our hardened silos,and the disposable bottles of posterity breaktoo easily beneath her bandaged feet,find a cot for her to lie down on, boys, but keep
herattention with the tourniquet,and her bowels on firewith the blast furnaces of overproduction.

Just as the automatic firing squad of the gross
national productsends nettles of ragethrough the hearts of everyone who is poor,And the pots and pans of industry fly off their
handlesto assault the midwife in her duties,And the immensity of the armored vehicles of despaircan only be measured using the serrated yardstick
of logicthat cuts men's hopes in half like a ribbonand fills them again with sand,So too the price of gold on the commodity markethas ears only for the noisy teeth of the dead,molar teeth of the rabid technologythat grinds us down dailyinto the fine powder of valium and cocaine.

The nation of stern fathersthrows up its hands in exasperation.The nation of stern fathersties the weight around its neck.The nation of stern fathersthrows itself overboard.

And the speed of the vortex that spins us around
andaround without hope of executive clemency.

At a Rally
in Washington Against the Draft

March 22, 1980

The grass is not yet green beneathour feet: it isa large self-addressed manila envelopewe carry in our coat pockets

There is a word written somewhere inside

The word moves out, fans its wingsand ascendinto the sea of blue

That is the one painted white by Picasso

The wings in flight do not weighupon the damp earthWe shake out their vast darknessand hurry on toward springWe march....

Strange metallic other birds darken the skiesover Central AmericaAt the State Department, men asleep at their desks
waken,screaming they had no choice in the matterWhole nations are about to be liftedoff the face of the earth